newmanbrian:

File under: There’s something happening here.

Freddie Wong (FreddieW). Ryan Higa (NigaHiga). Jenna Marbles. Kevin Wu (KevJumba). These are four names that I can mention in conversation with almost everyone I know in the independent film business and get blank stares. They aren’t…

This morning Detective John Tallow was bored with his job.

Then there was this naked guy with a shotgun, and his partner getting killed, and now Tallow has a real problem: an apartment full of guns. Old guns. Modified guns. Arranged in rows and spirals on the floor and walls. Hundreds of them.

Each weapon is tied to a single unsolved murder. Which means Tallow has uncovered two decades’ worth of homicides that no one knew to connect and a killer unlike anything that came before.

Tallow’s bosses don’t want him to solve the case. The murderer just wants him to die. But there’s a pattern hiding behind the deaths, and if Tallow can figure it out he might even make it out alive.

Old Ironsides

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

         Long has it waived on high,

And many an eye has danced to see

         That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle-shout,

         And burst the cannon’s roar:

The meteor of the ocean air

         Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,

         Where knelt the vanquished foe,

When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,

         And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor’s tread,

        Or know the conquered knee:

The harpies of the shore shall pluck

        The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk

        Should sink beneath the wave!

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

        And there should be her grave:

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

        Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

        The lighting, and the gale!

dcwomenkickingass:

You’ve seen this Batman post everywhere, now someone has created one for the true power of the DCU …

(via facebook)

The Sea Gypsy

By Richard Hovey

I am fevered with the sunset,

I am fretful with the bay,

For the wander-thirst is on me

And my soul is in Cathay.

There’s a schooner in the offing,

With her topsails shot with fire,

And my heart has gone aboard her

For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow!

With the sunset I must be

Hull down on the trail of rapture

In the wonder of the sea.

Young in New Orleans

By Charles Bukowski

starving there, sitting around the bars,

and at night walking the streets for
hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and I was always white.
and hardly charmed by the 
world.
New Orleans was a place to
hide.
I could piss away my life,
unmolested.
except for the rats.
the rats in my dark small room
very much resented sharing it
with me.
they were large and fearless
and stared at me with eyes
that spoke 
an unblinking
death.

women were beyond me.
they saw something
depraved.
there was one waitress
a little older than
I, she rather smiled,
lingered when she
brought my
coffee.

that was plenty for 
me, that was
enough.

there was something about
that city, though
it didn’t let me feel guilty
that I had no feeling for the
things so many others
needed.

it let me alone.

sitting up in my bed
the lights out,
hearing the outside
sounds,
lifting my cheap
bottle of wine,
letting the warmth of
the grape
enter
me
as I heard the rats 
moving about the
room,
I preferred them
to
humans.

being lost,
being crazy maybe
is not so bad
if you can be
that way
undisturbed.

New Orleans gave me
that.

nobody ever called
my name.

no telephone,
no car,
no job,
no
anything.

me and the 
rats
and my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a 
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

By Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before 

       me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add,

       divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with

       much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

kellysue:

YEAGER!

oldestyles:

That’s General Chuck Yeager laughing it up with Ava Gardner. (He was the first man to break the sound barrier.)

heres-looking-at-you-kid:

Ava Gardner.

The Weary Blues

By Langston Hughes

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,

Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,

       I heard a negro play.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night

By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light

       He did a lazy sway …

       He did a lazy sway …

To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.

With his ebony hands on each ivory key

He made that poor pieno moan with melody.

       O Blues!

Swinging to and for on his rickety stool

He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.

       Sweet Blues!

Coming from a black man’s soul.

       O Blues!

In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone

I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan —

        “Ain’t got nobody in all this world,

          Ain’t got nobody but ma self.

          I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’

          And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor..

He played a few chords then sang some more —

         ”I got the Weary Blues

          And I can’t be satisfied.

          Got the Weary Blues

          And can’t be satisfied —

          I ain’t happy no mo’

          And I wish that I had died.”

And far into the night he crooned that tune.

The stars went out and so did the moon.

The singer stopped playing and went to bed

While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.

He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.

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Gunga Din

By Rudyard Kipling

You may talk o’ gin and beer

When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere

An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;

But when it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on water,

An’ you” lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.

Now in Injia’s sunny clime,

Where I used to spend my time

A-servin’ of ‘Er Majesty the Queen,

Of all them blackfaced crew

The finest man I knew

Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

         He was ‘Din! ‘Din! ‘Din!

         You limping lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!

         Hi! slippery hitherao!

         Water, get it! Panee lao!

         You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.

The uniform ‘e wore

Was nothin’ much before,

An’ rather less than ‘arf o’ that be’ind,

For a piece o’ twisty rag

An’ a goatskin water-bag

Was all the field-equipment ‘e could find.

When the sweatin’ troop-train lay

In a sidin’ through the day,

Where the ‘eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,

We shouted ‘Harru By!’

Till our throat were brick dry,

Then we wopped ‘im ‘cause ‘e couldn’t serve us all.

          It was ‘Din! ‘Din! ‘Din!

          You ‘eathen, where the mischief ‘ave you been?

          You put some juldee in it

          Or i’ll marrow you this minute

          If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!

          ‘E would dot an’ carry one

          Till the longest day was done;

An’ ‘e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.

          If we charged or broke or cut,

          You could bet your bloomin’ nut,

‘E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.

          With ‘is mussick on ‘is back,

          ‘E would skip with our attack,

An’ watch us till the bugles made ‘Retire,’

           An’ for all ‘is dirty ‘ide

           ’E was white, clear white, inside

When ‘e went to tend the wounded under fire!

           It was ‘Din! ‘Din! ‘Din!

With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.

           When the cartridges ran out,

           You could hear the front-lines shout,

‘Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!’

           I sha’n’t forgit the night

           When I dropped be’ind the fight

With a bullet where my belt-plate should ‘a’ been.

           I was chokin’ mad with thirst,

           An’ the man that spied me first

Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.

           ’E lifted up my ‘ead,

           An he plugged me where I bled,

An’ ‘e guv me ‘arf-a-pint o’ water-green:

           It was crawlin’ and it stunk,

           But of allt he drinks I’ve drunk,

I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

          It was ‘Din! ‘Din! ‘Din!

‘Ere’s a begger with a bullet through ‘is spleen;

          ‘E’s chawin’ up the ground,

          An’ ‘e’s kickin’ all around:

For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!

          ‘E carried me away

           To where a dooli lay,

An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.

          ‘E put me safe inside,

          An’ just before ‘e died:

‘I ‘ope you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din.

         So I’ll meet ‘im later on

         At the place where ‘e is gone -

An’ I’ get a swing in hell from Gunga Din!

         Yes, Din! Din! Din!

You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!

          Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,

          By the living Gawd that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!